Today's sightings-busy Tack Piece
This Greylag Goose was using its powerful bill to grate a tuber that it had successfully dug up beneath the Robbie Garnett Hide. The serrated edge of the lower mandible (lower section of beak) was used to scrape off the juicy bits, it could then eat the mush without having to drop it, very skilful.
The Rushy Pen
Bewick’s Swan 170+ (most spending the day on Tack Piece or Ox Piece) Whooper Swan came in to roost at 4.25pm Pintail Pochard Tufted Duck Shelduck Mallard Gadwall Teal Lapwing
Holden Tower
Marsh Harrier- juv female hunting on and off all day Buzzard 4 Peregrine 2 (one on foreshore log, the other in the Turkish Oaks bordering Tack Piece Golden Plover 1000 Lapwing 2800 Dunlin 800 Curlew 252 at high tide Barnacle Goose 203 Little Egret 1 Raven 3 (including displays on the ground and tumbling flight display) Great Black-backed Gull 25
Tack Piece (Martin Smith, Robbie Garnett and Stephen Kirk Hides + Holden Tower)
Black-tailed Godwit 241 Little Stint 2 Dunlin 300 Lapwing 1000 Golden Plover 600 (mobile flock) Curlew 20 Ruff 5+ Redshank 12 White-fronted Geese 165 around midday Pink-footed Goose 2-an adult with the above, first winter with Greylag Geese Crane 7 Great Crane Project birds Shoveler Pochard Pintail Teal 350 Stock Dove 4 on the Rushy fence and pollards.
Willow Hide
Water Rail 2
Robbie Garnett Hide
Water Rail 1 squealing in reply to Willow Hide birds Bullfinch-male feeding on bramble seeds
Zeiss Hide (Top New Piece)
Teal 800 Wigeon 400 Pochard Tufted Duck Shoveler Black-tailed Godwit 65 Ruff 11 at 0900 Marsh Harrier on a carcass mid morning Snipe 3 in SW corner of the marsh in cut vegetation area Treecreeper- 3 in the Spinney Wood
Kingfisher Hide (Bottom New Piece)
Dunlin 700 (same as Dumbles/Holden Tower flock) Lapwing 400 (mobile flock) No reports of Bittern or Barn Owl.
Van de Bovenkamp Hide
Same species as from Zeiss Bullfinch- pair feeding in hedge, male singing
South Lake
Great Crested Grebe 1 Teal 90 Redshank 5 Black-tailed Godwit 5 Dunlin 2 Cormorant 5 Shoveler 50
Ferruginous Duck- female was again on the Asian pen this afternoon
